Alice Springs - Kings Canyon

You had better get a good map. Buy a Hema Road Atlas

The road to Kings Canyon is bitumen for the first 126km and then gravel road after that with potholes. bulldust patches and corrugations. Or it coiuld be as smooth as silk if the grader has been there. You need a permit to travel the gravel road named Mereenie Loop Road and you can get that at the Tourist Office in Alice Springs.

Yes Kings Canyon is an internationally reknown tourist site and well worth the visit.

Try Googling the information you need.

Hi Grunter
We were there September last year, from the West Macs you head south past Goose bluff, and link up with the Merreenie Loop. Dirt and Bull Dust, very corrugated, but well worth the effort. Keep the speed down and watch your tyres. Keep an eye out for camels and brumbys. Kings Canyon also worth the effort, take plenty of water. In the treks tab search West MacDonnell ranges and you will find a fair bit of information, you are supposed to have a permit to use the Merreenie Loop, available in AS at the tourist centre. We will be back there in September this year and will spend more time in the Macs.
Have a GREAT trip.
Cheers
TasG

The answer to your questions in order is;

Yes.
OK.
Yes.

We travelled through and around that area a couple of years ago.

We were initially based in Alice. We did a day trip to the West MacDonnell Ranges. We started at the feature closest to Alice that we wanted to see and continued to move west stopping at everything we thought we would like to explore. Our trip terminated at Standley Chasm. We spent a long time here because we were having fun. The kids were enjoying exploring much further up the chasm than the vast majority of tourists, and I was enjoying looking after them.
We returned to our CV park much later than we had planned but it was worth it. The next day we did the same thing heading east. However, because we were not planning to travel that way again we drove past a few things to look at what we thought would be more interesting.

When we left Alice we drove rest passing Standley Chasm before we even thought about stopping. From there we stopped in looking at a number of the gorges along the way. We again got stuck at Redbank Gorge where we had a very cold swim. My desire to explore saw me swim, climb and crawl well up the gorge. This made us late so we were forced to miss a lot of stuff we would have liked to see. We did stop at Grosse Bluff before heading to Palm Valley for the night. The road from Redbank to Palm Valley deteriorated. In places it was badly corrugated but other than that was OK. We arrived at Palm Valley late and missed out on the good camp sites. We had a bit of a walk to showers and toilets but it was very quiet where we camped.

The next day, after a good walk through the valley. We listened in on the tour guide leading a group of backpackers, he didn't seem to mind and we learned a lot.

The Mereenie Loop, west from Palm Valley, to Kings Canyon was a nice drive, again it was badly corrugated but otherwise fine. A little sandy in places but we did see a couple of 2wd vehicles on the road. You need a permit which you can get at, although I did wonder what would happen if I did not get one, we saw nobody policing this permit.

We camped at Kings Canyon for 2 nights in the resort camp ground. Did the full walk and it was great. We again had a great time and KC is spectacular.

The HEMA map of the area is very good.

Duncs

Grunter
As already noted above road is accessible but a little rough in places. Permit costs about $2.20!!! from memory. If you like bush style camping try Kings Creek Station. A little further down the road from King's Canyon but a nice place to stay.

The rim walk at King's Canyon is a highlight. Also many other great things to see through the Gorges' and loop road.

Hardo!MPG:8!

Thanks for all the tips.
will definately get some good maps,just looking at the dodgy one at work at the moment.

Thanks again everyone,very much appreciated.

If you are going down the Finke river make sure you have plenty of clearance. I went down there a couple of years ago and had problems because of the LPG tank slung under my 1990 Pajero. I had to turn round and come back. (This was a vehicle that had handled the Gunbarrel no problems on the way to the centre).

At Hermansburg we spotted a sign in the petrol station saying that track is for high clearance vehicles only - too late unfortunately, but they were right. The track itself was easy, the problem was the large hump down the middle due to deep wheel tracks.

Then again .... it could all be different now!

We experienced a most unusual sight when driving the Mereenie Loop Road.

We approached an "object" on the road which looked kind of like a long skinny snake from a distance. As we drew near to it, we could see now and again, how the wind affected its progress, waving sideways a bit then straightening up.

We pulled over and got out for a closer look and discovered something like 2 hundred caterpillars linked head to tail in a long progression. Sometimes the breeze would blow a few of them sideways but without breaking the link. Just whisked them off their feet for a bit until they recovered and continued their march.

It's just fascinating what you come across in the bush.